


Mud Trudger

by Insular_Keyboard_Chimp



Series: Thawing Grave [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, Substance Abuse, Vault 95
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 12:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10334930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insular_Keyboard_Chimp/pseuds/Insular_Keyboard_Chimp
Summary: The path to Vault 95 isn't an easy one; it's a road paved with trials that lead to an equally painful reward.





	

The sole survivor of Vault 111 chambered another round into her rifle. She was camouflaged in the brush outside of the famed Vault 95. Between the chameleon shin-guard she'd stolen off a decapitated raider and the thick mud caking her armor, the silent sentinel was practically invisible. Her companion, however, was not. Loud and brash, but dependable in every way that mattered, Cait was crouched behind the sole survivor with a sparking sledgehammer against her shoulder. It stank of gasoline and frying flesh, but it was the most effective weapon for Cait. She insisted she liked it "up close and personal", after all. Up close and personal wasn't going to work in this situation. Vault 95 was heavily guarded by a squad of elite Gunners equipped with the most advanced technology the sole survivor had seen since she'd been defrosted. The survivor hacked the terminal controlling a Sentry Bot's cage earlier; they figured the machine would roll the Gunners easy-peasy. They were wrong. Within moments of releasing the hostile machine, a sleek, sprinting Assaultron annihilated the bastard. It was a thing of beauty and horror; a blinding laser that reminded the sole survivor of the day the bombs dropped. Cait and the survivor were tucked inside of the attached supply tower while the Assaultron scanned the area. Cait's hair was stringy and moist with sweat. There was something in her eyes that didn't belong there - something the sole survivor had never seen: a mixture of fear, rage, and hope. That little bit of hope was enough for the sole survivor. The Gunners and their sophisticated, bullshit robots wouldn't stand.

Cait followed the order more strictly than usual when the sole survivor told her to leave the building. She remained behind the survivor, crouching behind cover while the survivor fired a suppressed round into the head of an Assaultron atop the wall of Vault 95. It was a slow process. Fire, back up, stealth. Cait didn't complain. One by one, the mechanical guardians of Vault 95 fell. The strain in the survivor's shoulder lessened when she heard the final explosion. Only the mercenaries were left, and they were nothing but human. One scoped shot after another, one bullet after another, they fell. One perceptive Gunner ventured close to the hill the survivor was perched on. Cait rushed with an Irish-accented battlecry; by the time she was done, there was nothing left of the conscript but a scorched, caved-in skull. The sole survivor and her faithful friend shared a brief, relieved smile.

"This is it, ain't it? We've made it," Cait exhaled.

"Not yet."

They looted the corpses and the mechanical toy soldiers for anything of value before entering the elevator that led into the vault. Cait still had that manic gleam in her eyes that put the survivor on edge. This wasn't going to be a piece of cake. Super Mutants and raiders were dumb prey. Scaling towers and shooting enemies before they spotted her wasn't hard for the survivor; it felt natural. Cait could bum-rush opponents while the survivor sat back and fired potshots. This, though? This was a military complex outfitted with elite equipment and a _lot_ of hired guns. Cait would just be a liability. Considering the mission was for Cait's benefit, there was no use letting her die in the lobby because of an ill-planned frontal assault. They snuck in and surveyed the ground floor.

"It's crawlin' with the bastards," Cait whispered "and I can't wait to sink me hammer in 'em."

"Stop."

"Oh, don't even pretend ya' ain't waitin' to kill these bleedin' idiots. We handled the loafers outside just fine, you know."

The sole survivor gestured with her head towards a locked sliding door behind them. Cait got right to it.

"Glad you're findin' some use for me. See that? It's ingrained in me blood."

That was about the time the sole survivor side-checked Cait into the unlocked room and slammed the door behind her.

"What the fock do you think you're doing?!"

"Just stay there!"

The commotion was rousing the mercenaries from their routine. The survivor wiped some anxious sweat off her brow, rattled the door with a bobby pin until it locked, and stayed still until she was stealthed. Cait stared angrily at her from behind the plexiglass window, but remained silent.

Forty-two .50 caliber rounds left. Four Stealth-Boys, fifty mercenaries, and no time to waste. That bloodshot-eyed little fighter in the locked room wouldn't die today.

The survivor clicked on a Stealth-Boy and snuck past the lobby. There was enough time to hack a terminal leading into a hallway strung with grenade bouquets and shut the door behind her. The chorus of astonished, breathless gasps from the Gunners rattled her, but the sole survivor kept moving. She was light enough on her feet to step past the trip-wire and proceed down the hallway. Gunners, scattered in corridors and bedrooms, went down one by one. A single shot to the head from a silenced sniper rifle put them to rest. When they were grouped together, the survivor held her breath and prayed to a nonexistent god that they wouldn't trigger an alarm after their buddy went down. They didn't.

Two floors down and she's in a basement with twelve rounds left. The hallways stink of chems and corpses, but she persists. The final .50 round lands in the skull of a Gunner Seargent and the survivor steals everything that isn't nailed down; she even found a bobble-head. Fuck Vault-Tec.

She's got nothing left but .308 rounds and a noisy-ass pipe sniper rifle. It takes care of the stragglers guarding the chem sanitation room. When she found the chair inside, the survivor stood. It was really there. It was the cure for Cait, sitting empty in a filthy room that reeked of blood and agony. Relief flooded the survivor - no, not relief - joy flooded her. Joy by proxy: joy for Cait. The survivor had never felt joy for another person, husband or son, but she was awash with a floaty euphoria that she could only describe as _joy_.

And then the gunshots came from above and the survivor shook cold. A fevered sprint brought her back to the ground floor, where she spotted Cait rushing up a flight of stairs with her hammer out. The crafty bitch must've broken out of the room. God damn it, god damn it! The survivor stealthed out and scoped in on the remaining Assaultron. A surprise attack knocked off the robot's head-plate, but it gave away the survivor's position. Another one of those ungodly laser blasts was coming. The survivor chucked her sniper rifle and jabbed herself with every chem she'd stolen from the basement - a dose of Psychojet, a hit of Buffout, a shot of Med-X - and slung her shotgun off her back. One V.A.T.S blast, two blasts to the head, a Nuka-Cola Quantum and a third blast delivered with shaking hands and shrunken pupils. The Assaultron collapsed into a pile of ash and scrap metal. Cait finished off a Gunner Corporal with her hammer in the back room and the complex fell silent.

"Ca-...Cait," the survivor whispered in her drugged haze.

"Fock, that was close."

"Cait! Cait, I thought you'd...I thought you'd died. I thought you were dead."

Cait gave the survivor one of her skeptical, amused looks.

"I ain't dyin' when I'm so close to the prize, girlie."

The survivor shakily grabbed Cait by the wrist and pulled her downstairs towards the sanitation room.

Cait walked along with a steady gait, her mania replaced by focus and concern as they entered the room.

"I ain't sure I'm ready for this," she said.

"You're r-...ready. You're ready. Please, Cait. Get clean."

"I dunnae' what's wrong with you, Mary. You're shakin' all over. I know this wasn't a walk in the park for you, but I - I...I need to get clean. You're right."

Watching Cait squirm and shriek in the chair as the recovery needles sucked the Psycho out of her system was the worst thing Mary had seen all day. Cait's smile after she got up was the best thing she'd ever seen in her life.


End file.
